The Big Rub

Last Thursday, as I was killing time between picking up my new eyeglasses and meeting some friends for lunch, I found myself seduced into listening to a sales pitch from very short man at a mall kiosk. After rebuffing my half-hearted attempts to leave, I was placed on a wooden bar stool and intensely examined. He was selling facial creams and possibly saving me from a life of a dry and wrinkled face.
He spoke in a thick accent, I wasn't sure where from, but he had such authority in his delivery I began believing everything he said.
He proceeded to dab my unsightly under-eye circles with a top secret magic formula. This cream was also able to lift the sags and smooth the lines around my eyes. But, he would only do one eye so I could visibly see the amazing transformation.
I have to admit, I could visibly see the difference between eye A and unforgiving eye B.
Then the man continued vocally picking apart my flaws, telling me how much older and unattractive I was having these three obviously deformities (the under eye circles, the laugh lines and now slight acne scars). I was shocked. Here I was thinking I was looking pretty good that day. I had spent an hour donning makeup and hair in anticipation of a girl's luncheon, when in his reality I really should have been wearing a bag, and probably a two-ply, brown paper bag over my head.
Along with tearing my self esteem apart, the creepy little man kept rubbing against me with his even tinier "manhood".
At first I thought it was an accident. I was sitting high on a chair, my legs were crossed and he was leaning in to dab eye cream on me. It was a plausible mistake.
The second time, after I had readjusted feeling embarrassed by the accidental contact, the man lingered on me. It must have been an accident, right? Wasn't it an accident?
After sitting and listening to my many, many faults and on the verge of wanting to hide in my house for the remainder of my life if only to spare the world of my ugliness, the stout little man, rubbed against me for the third time (he was no longer applying facial cream to my face, it was a mask on my forearm). I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't fathom this kind of behavior, to me, a grown woman in my thirties, in broad day light and in a very public place.
I stood up, thanked the man for his time and then limped away to the Express store to cry among the sales rack in the back.
I was humiliated. What had I done to deserve this? What could I have done to provoke this kind of behavior? And how had I become so ugly in a few short hours?
In telling my friends of what had conspired, I was still visibly shaken, one friend even had tears in her eyes, wanted to know why. My other friend explained it to me perfectly; it was because simply, I was unprepared.
If I had had my guard up, the creep probably wouldn't have succeeded in getting away with so much. I blame my environment. In a culture of perpetual "turn the other cheek" I have found myself cheek less and down right spineless.
What time period am I living in? A truly great time it is. I am living in a time where a woman could run for President of the United States and another woman could run for Vice President. I am witnessing events that will forever be known in history as the "firsts" and here I am crying in the back of an Express Store.
I decided to take action and stand up for myself and for my two friends and also for my younger, less-wise self. I called the Mall Management Offices to complain, and waited for a returned phone call. Nothing. They still haven't called, even after two messages.
The next day, still feeling the sting to my self-esteem and wounded from not taking more action, I decided to go back to the Mall.
This time I was prepared. I spent over an hour getting ready. My hair was perfect. My makeup was sublime, my outfit, smart and slightly sexy, and my shoes, six inches (I wanted to tower over the man).
I went to Dillards and purchased many facial products for my skin. Guess what? The sweet woman behind the counter kept disputing all the products I was told I needed the day before for my badly pocked and ugly skin. She couldn't see my acne scars. She even compared me to Anne Hathaway. I like Anne Hathaway, I think she's pretty.

Taking my time and my purchases, and I must mention I had a prepared speech; I trekked back to the now hated man at his Kiosk.
He wasn't there. He wasn't working that day.
No matter. I was there to gain my self respect. I told the two women now working the Kiosk about what transpired. Including the crazy rubbing the creep did.
The women didn't believe me. In fact, one hugged me, the other tried to sell me some product for half price! I showed them my bag of facial treatments and told them, thank you for the hug, but I am not now nor ever going to buy anything from them.
It didn't matter that the women didn't believe me. I don't care that they didn't see it as a big deal. I am delighted that I stood up for myself and for my friends and for anyone else who has been broad sided and left in ruins. I did it for my sex and I did it for me. I can go back to the Mall or any place else with my head held high. Next time though, I'll have my guard up.

The Assassination of Self

She sits inside my skin, a giant within my 5'4" frame
She sits, crouching in wait.
She isn't comfortable, always complaining.
I believe she is protecting me.
I believe she is genuine in trying to help.
So I listen to her whispers.
I nod in agreement when she shouts.

She is always with me
She is always awake, making me partially asleep.
I have appointed her my Master,
I, merely the apprentice.

One day, or perhaps many days, over thirty years or so, I wake up.
She is happiest crammed inside me.

She claims I need her,
In truth, she's the one in need.
Without me, without dwelling beneath my skin, and whispering self-doubt
She would die.
She feeds on me.
That's how she has gotten so big.
That's how she's gotten so self important.

And now she's threatened.
Threatened that I am wise to her.
Threatened that I have awakened.
She won't leave on her own.
I've tried to out grow her.
She's not going to leave,
Not without death.

It is up to me.
I am going to be her assassin. But how? I've never killed
Anybody before?
I could pull the trigger, twice.
Once by way of kind words,
The second by believing those words.

She knows what I'm planning.
She tries to sabotage my schemes.
She screams and trembles.
She debates and claims I'll fail without her.
She apologizes and promises silence.

She won't be so critical.
She won't expose all the issues I have.
She'll keep my secrets
She'll try to ignore how terrible I truly am.
After all She's only trying to help.
She's only trying to HELP!

Her pleading has worked in the past.
She did keep her promises, for a little while, at least.
But then She grew.
She got bigger and stronger, than before.
And I had failed again, at something else.

And She snickered
And She delighted
And pointed out her "told me so's".
But not this time.
This time I have a fool-proof plan.
Practice.
Kindness.

I will use a knife and spoon.
I will cut her out.
With Practice, I will scoop her out
And all of her roots, with her.
I will Practice with Kindness
And I will not let my guard down.

She'll plot to come back.
She'll search for small cracks.
She'll send out shoots and try to plant them
When another tries to put me down.

I won't listen.
I won't hear.
I will block her and knock her down.
I will kill her.
And then I will be free.

And maybe one day, I'll visit her grave site.
And marvel at my accomplishment.
I'll read on her tombstone;
Here She Lies,
Here She Dies,
My Old Self
My Poor Bad Self-Esteem.

Inside The Looking Glass

Today I went to the Ophthalmologist for my yearly check up.
It seems my eyes, like everything else in accordance to age, are getting worse.
This bugs me, immensely.
I think it has to do with my ability to remember the thoughts and feelings I had when I was seventeen.
Don't get me wrong, for me, High School was not my "glory day". I hated High School. I loathed almost everything about it and am puzzled whenever people want to reunite with High School buddies and reminisce about "the good 'ol days".
The good 'ol days? Why would I want to remember my self-loathing, deeply-depressed, sarcastic and man-hating, not to mention an awkwardly hopeless-romantic, not-sure-what-to-do-with-myself, side? Yuck! And more importantly, I don't want anyone else to remember me this way either.
I work really hard to shape myself into the adult I want to be and practically pretend that my old self doesn't exist. To sum up, I had a lot to be angry about, I have a lot less to be angry about now.
So I am at the Ophthalmologist when I am presented with, "you have Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis and you need to wear eye glasses more and alternate with contacts occasionally".
What?
The Ophthalmologist repeated it to me.
No comprende..?
Basically I have cooties on my eye lids and it is effecting my eyes. I have to use special medication via eye drops and can't wear contacts for at least one month. And then he'll see.
What about surgery? Wait, I can't afford Lasik, yet.
So what's the big deal?
I hate glasses. I own a pair. One pair, that are out of style and that are no longer the right prescription, which I can't see (no pun intended) is a big deal because I only wear them when there aren't people around.
I take out my contacts, right before bed, and put on glasses after my face-washing ritual is complete. Then I squint during the news and then go to sleep.
I get up the next morning, slip the ugly things back on, and commence with the squinting while I get my kids ready for school. After my morning shower and more face-washing rituals, I put my contacts in.
My little secret identity; no one sees them, no one sees me in those hideous glasses.
It's not as if I hate glasses. I love sunglasses and on others, I think glasses are quite cute, sexy even, but not on me. Every time I put a pair of regular eye wear across the bridge of my nose, I am magically and painfully transformed back to my adolescence. Looking through my own looking glass, I am once again an unattractive, nerdy teenager, which is one of the reasons I was so angry back then. So why would I want that kind of self esteem?
Back at the Ophthalmologist, I tried on pair after pair of eye glasses. These ones make me look too old. Those are too square. I don't like the size of these ones. I don't know why I look so weird with these on...they look cuter on the model...(I know most things do).
Then it occurred to me, it's not them, it's me. It wouldn't matter if I found the most perfect pair of eyeglasses, contoured and made exactly for my face. A pair that transformed me into a Giorgio Armani model.
It wouldn't matter. The real issue is my "inside me".
I still have not out grown the angst ridden teenager who was so afraid of the world.
What is up with that?
I keep thinking I have changed. I am different and I am unstoppable. I'm a grown up for crying out loud!
So after an hour and a half I left without a pair of glasses. I am going back with my husband and kids for their opinion. Maybe having their support might transform me back into the woman I've been working on. And maybe I can challenge that teenager stuck under my skin to a duel and show her, through a new pair of eyes, my true self.